Picasso 1932

It was Julie's birthday yesterday. It's hot, the bus ride to the Millennium bridge was hardly pleasant. But the giant shop that is Tate Modern was at least air conditioned, even if the circulation, for an architect, remains infuriating. So hot and infuriated, we chose Picasso first, and Shape of Light second. I recommend you see both in the same morning; they offer a good contrast.
We bought just three postcards from the Picasso show. There they are, above, obscuring the rather dull birthday cards you tend to receive when you are over fifty. Considering these paintings were done in the space of a few days in 1932, they come astonishingly fresh.
They hang together in exactly that order, the two on the right larger than the one on the left. The two on the right feature the same aspidistra. I don't care if it's an aspidistra or not, it's just the same plant. And it's the same Marie Terese too; all over the show. You can't help thinking that throughout 1932, she must have spent a whole lot of time sitting around half naked in that particular arm chair. You also can't help thinking how pissed off Olga must have been looking at this endless succession of amazing paintings of Picasso's new love. To be a great artist, it's clear, you really don't give a damn, and that is the biggest lesson of this show.
There is not doubt that the two on the right are masterpieces, they are the two paintings in a big show that draw your breath. Overall, the show demonstrates just how much art a great modern painter could make in a year, and that takes your breath away too, but those two paintings in particular, are just magnificent.
But to be Picasso must have been a bit of a strain. In becoming Picasso, he's also damaged goods. That's the second lesson from this show; there's just too much him.
Moving in to Shape of Light, across the opposite side of the third floor galleries, you'd be pressed to find any personality at all. Thats the thing about photography, it's a thankfully more introverted pursuit, sitting in that dark room, carefully working print after print, looking for perfection. Where Picasso is large and immediate, photography is small and time consuming; literally often enough; small enough for you to notice the mounting and the framing. Julie said that's why there are more girls; stashed away in those dark rooms; avoiding display. I couldn't help thinking 'the oldies are the goldies'; the photograms from the Bauhaus era whisk you away. Whisk you where? To a space of optimism and faith in the future. What's telling is that as you move through that exhibition, you slowly lose it; you trudge forward to fuck all; to screens. So you might think photography over in a 'click' but it isn't. The thing about Shape of Light is the realisation that it is precisely not about the moment or the personality, but of that time secluded in the dark room. Instagram it is not, craft it is, or was.